There have been a few bloggings recently which have looked at the intersection of religious and political questions. Michael posted on progressive Christianity, while Span posted on sexual politics and religion.
Personally, I am not religious. I have never seen any reason to believe in the existence of god, at least in the specific forms the major religions claim. Further, I think religion does a lot of harm to good political discourse, and is not helpful in constructing a decent moral code. This post has two main points; to say that it is not possible to be a liberal and a proper Christian, and to say that religion is basically incompatible with pluralistic politics. I am not arguing for a return to conservative Christianity! I am arguing that religion ought to be left out of politics, and preferably disposed of altogether. I have chosen to post about Christianity and politics, mainly because I know more about Christianity than other religions, and to keep the size of this post manageable. I do not think Christianity is any “worse” than other religions in terms of its tolerance or compatibility with politics.
Michael’s post outlined an argument for progressive Christianity. He is absolutely right that this is something which has been sorely lacking from Christian politics in this country. If I had to choose a form of religious politics, progressive Christianity would be it. However, there are a number of problems even with this form of religious politics. While progressive Christianity obviously serves to emphasise the progressive aspects of the religion, it cannot totally downplay the fact that there are many regressive aspects of Christianity. It is still hard to deny that Christianity is not a liberal faith. The Bible still contains views on homosexuality, the death penalty and myriad other things which are violently at odds with those of liberals. Basically I think progressive Christians soft-pedal or ignore the illiberal aspects of their faith. While this is absolutely admirable, and certainly results in a much better form of Christianity from a liberal stand-point, it doesn’t gel at all with traditional Christianity as derived from the Bible (especially the Old Testament). People often focus on the New Testament as part of this change in emphasis. This might help to make Christianity more warm and fuzzy, but it isn’t really honest. The Old Testament is just as much “God’s Word”, and can’t be ignored just because it is inconvenient.
It seems to me, that to be a liberal Christian, you have to ignore an awful lot of the supposed word of god. If you have to ignore so much of his word, it doesn’t speak of a traditional Christianity. In fact, I think that if someone ignores that much of the Bible, and of traditional church practice, it essentially means one has created a new religion, based on liberal politics. This is fine if that is what you want to do, but it seems to me you might as well just own up to being a committed liberal and leave the religious aspect out.
Religion and plurality:
Religion is about dogmatic certainties. People have faith in the revealed certainties of their creator. This is totally at odds with the reality of politics, which is that differing groups and people make compromises with one another. If two different groups have conflicting religious beliefs, they can’t reconcile them without setting religion aside. If you believe God has told you to do A, how could you possibly do C, or agree to do B as a compromise? This suggests two things to me, First, religious people of necessity set their faith aside when acting politically, and second, that it would be better for all concerned if religion were punted out of politics altogether.
Personally, I am not religious. I have never seen any reason to believe in the existence of god, at least in the specific forms the major religions claim. Further, I think religion does a lot of harm to good political discourse, and is not helpful in constructing a decent moral code. This post has two main points; to say that it is not possible to be a liberal and a proper Christian, and to say that religion is basically incompatible with pluralistic politics. I am not arguing for a return to conservative Christianity! I am arguing that religion ought to be left out of politics, and preferably disposed of altogether. I have chosen to post about Christianity and politics, mainly because I know more about Christianity than other religions, and to keep the size of this post manageable. I do not think Christianity is any “worse” than other religions in terms of its tolerance or compatibility with politics.
Michael’s post outlined an argument for progressive Christianity. He is absolutely right that this is something which has been sorely lacking from Christian politics in this country. If I had to choose a form of religious politics, progressive Christianity would be it. However, there are a number of problems even with this form of religious politics. While progressive Christianity obviously serves to emphasise the progressive aspects of the religion, it cannot totally downplay the fact that there are many regressive aspects of Christianity. It is still hard to deny that Christianity is not a liberal faith. The Bible still contains views on homosexuality, the death penalty and myriad other things which are violently at odds with those of liberals. Basically I think progressive Christians soft-pedal or ignore the illiberal aspects of their faith. While this is absolutely admirable, and certainly results in a much better form of Christianity from a liberal stand-point, it doesn’t gel at all with traditional Christianity as derived from the Bible (especially the Old Testament). People often focus on the New Testament as part of this change in emphasis. This might help to make Christianity more warm and fuzzy, but it isn’t really honest. The Old Testament is just as much “God’s Word”, and can’t be ignored just because it is inconvenient.
It seems to me, that to be a liberal Christian, you have to ignore an awful lot of the supposed word of god. If you have to ignore so much of his word, it doesn’t speak of a traditional Christianity. In fact, I think that if someone ignores that much of the Bible, and of traditional church practice, it essentially means one has created a new religion, based on liberal politics. This is fine if that is what you want to do, but it seems to me you might as well just own up to being a committed liberal and leave the religious aspect out.
Religion and plurality:
Religion is about dogmatic certainties. People have faith in the revealed certainties of their creator. This is totally at odds with the reality of politics, which is that differing groups and people make compromises with one another. If two different groups have conflicting religious beliefs, they can’t reconcile them without setting religion aside. If you believe God has told you to do A, how could you possibly do C, or agree to do B as a compromise? This suggests two things to me, First, religious people of necessity set their faith aside when acting politically, and second, that it would be better for all concerned if religion were punted out of politics altogether.
5 comments:
This is interesting. So you think that if you have to ignore a lot of the things you are supposed to revere, in order for your religion to gel with your personal beliefs, then you shouldn't go with that faith?
How about political parties then - I'd be surprised to find any party members, let alone loyal voters, who don't neglect to remember the parts of their policy that they don't like much.
At the risk of becoming the sort of self promoting fool who only comments here to promote his own website. I had a hack at a counter argument to this a while ago on my blog. TO be fair, I'm not sure that I really made my point clearly or very well (it's one of those posts I'm thinking of redoing) but you might find it interesting.
The thing is, you can't always get what you want - we all know that. But this doesn't stop us from arguing for the right thing whenever we have the opportunity, and doing the right thing in whatever position of responsibility we find ourselves. Just because politics results in compromise doesn't mean you should stop articulating what you really think is right.
See dogma is a property of ideology as much as it is a property of religion. Any and every philosophical belief or moral statement is essentially dogmatic, whether it is religious or not.
Progressive Christianity is missing from politics in NZ largely because it is such a variable quantity. The votes go to people of the left because they are known to be feminists, unionists or treehuggers, not some nebulous concept as Christianity which covers such a wide range of political views.
The other little problem for the Left and Christianity is that Christians had to sell out their beliefs to reconcile them with socialism; socialism hasn't really changed at all. Therefore socialism is naturally going to be seen as much more ideologically stable.
It's interesting to date that no one has mentioned the Ratana Church as Labour's Christian allies. Perhaps the Ratana Church is recognised as not being very mainstream in Christian circles, having less political capital than the Anglicans, Presbyterians etc. Or maybe it's a little plainer, like the Ratanas are still anti-gay etc.
One more thing - Socialism is opposed to religion in any form, as I understand it. Marxism is a religion in itself, and anything independent of that is anathema.
Socialists tend to support Islam around the world, but only as a stepping stone to rid the world of American/Western influence. They have no more use for Islam than the US does.
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